Toadstools…

They started quite discreet…

But then they grew…

And grew…..

And grew…!

I thought that fly agarics were rare, or only grew in foreign lands. A quick google tells me they are rife and everywhere. Still, I’ve never seen one except in a picture book so I was pretty disappointed there weren’t more gnomes. Or any gnomes.

Luckily the hens didn’t seem interested in eating them, but something was definitely having a nibble – I think our resident slugs are having a whale of a time at the bottom of the garden! Either that or they’ve all poisoned themselves.

Either way, I’m not particularly interested in eating them. I just think they’re pretty. A friend issued a warning when I put these pics on Facebook – you’d better pick them before they spore or your garden will look like Super Mario Land!

That sounds awesome!

Beccy Ridsdel

Needle felting–just stabbing wool with needles?

Well, if it’s me doing it the answer’s yes. I’ve seen youtube videos of people making lovely things but for now I’m just stabbing stuff.

You see, before Christmas mum did a bit of needlefelting. Or rather, she sneaked in on a workshop being held for students and pretended to be working whilst actually having a go herself – training and development people! Anyway, she enjoyed it and didn’t manage to finish the piece she was working on so I bought a load of needles and roving for her for Christmas. I also forced my little brother to use a sewing machine and make a needle case – look at this!

He chose the fabric, the fancy stitches, the felt, even the thread colour. He sewed it all himself and I was very impressed.

Today we finally found a few minutes for mum to show me how it’s done (ish).

Wanna see what I made?

Nope, I haven’t got a clue either. It’s a bakewell sushi, um, with a tail. I got a bit carried away adding bits of wool here and there and forgot to actually look at it. Still, it was fun!

And anyway, mum’s is weird too.

I think I need to do a bit more to get the hang of this, but I like it!

Beccy

A box of treasures…

My great aunt sent us an interesting box recently.

It turned out it was full to brimming with old family photos.

I have no idea why my great aunt didn’t want them but she had heard from my gran we’d been researching the family tree and thought we would like them, which was really lovely of her.

I love old photos and here are a few of my favourites.

My gran and grandad getting married in 1959. I think I’ve mentioned her wedding dress before. A few years ago we found it in a box in their garage. It’s beautiful, and she still has the head-dress and veil. My great-gran made the whole thing for her and it’s tiny. Needless to say we made her move it to a safe place in the house.

That’s my great-gran on the far right in the above photo, she was tiny, we called her our little gran. This is the only photo we have of her.

My big great-gran in the 20’s, May. I only ever had two great-grans, and they are both my mum’s grandmas. May was my grandad’s mum and she was a formidable woman who lived to 96. A lot of the photos centre around her so the bulk of them must have been her collection.

May’s mother and father Norah and Joseph, my great, great grandparents. He died in 1912 aged 38.

Great aunt Daisy, May’s sister, looking awesome on a motorbike. That’s May standing behind her.

May with her husband Herbert (this is the only photo where he doesn’t look grumpy, my gran assures me he looked pretty mean in real life too) and their daughter my aunty Betty. I love that my great gran is in a full swimming costume but he’s just rolled up his trouser bottoms and hasn’t even taken off his suit jacket. He’ll be wearing braces under that jacket too, he is in all the other photos.

Isn’t family history fascinating? We’ve managed to get the tree back to about 1600 in several directions and although my mum knew most of these people I’ve never seen some of them before, and we’ve certainly never seen them young. They used to just be a list of names and dates in genes reunited but this makes them real.

There are about 100 photos in all, and it took ages to scan and identify everyone in them – some are still unidentified like this one:

Look at those amazing dresses, especially the one the little girl in the front is wearing. I wish I knew who they were.

Beccy

A day in sunny Scarborough…

except it wasn’t that sunny. We left York in a heatwave and pitched up in the middle of what my gran reliably tells me was a sea-fret.

And you know what? It was beautiful and eerie at the same time. We took a walk along North bay beach and could hear kids playing but we couldn’t see anyone, then all of a sudden four kids would run out of the fog, head across our path and back into the fog again. Spooky.

We also went to the Sea Life Centre while we were there. I know they are huge, commercial, shiny, shiny zoos but by god, the fish are pretty. And also a little spooky, like these jellyfish.

Woooooooo, spooky jellyfish…

See? I could bore you with another twenty pictures like these, but I won’t. I’ll finish with one more though, entitled “mummy, why are those seals fighting?” Ahem.

Beccy

Some thrifted goodies…

First some fabric. I can’t walk by a fabricy bargain! There is loads of this first one, more than enough for a twirly dress and honestly, it’s much nicer in real life – it looks quite 40’s :)

This next fabric is actually a pair of cotton curtains, I love the slightly offset printing of the yellow.

I have a special soft-spot for Sanderson type fabrics. This is only a little piece but it’s more than enough for a bag.

I love old craft books, I’ve got lots of them but there’s always room on my overcrowded shelves for one more!

Look at the illustrations!

I picked up this little box of thread for £1 at my favourite Sally Army. They are only little spools but the lovely bright colours will be great for accents.

Any idea what this is? It cost £1 and I thought it might be a little loom.

It sort-of is, but (have you guessed yet?)…

It’s for darning! I’ll never use it, but I love interesting old sewing paraphernalia.

So the end of my recent thrifty travels, but I’m off to a jumble sale tomorrow…

Beccy

An errand and a maypole…

I had to run an errand today that involved driving miles and miles. When that happens we like to plot a route that takes in a few charity shops or Interesting Things. It’s been a gloomy day but we decided to take a slight detour to visit Isurium Brigantium, an unearthed Roman town complete with mosaic floors. Sounded interesting, but when we got there we found out it doesn’t open until April. Bums.

The relatively modern village around the site was really pretty though – complete with maypole and red phone boxes. I could easily live there, all we could hear was birdsong.

And an 18th century church, is it too morbid to like gravestones?

We hit a couple of charity shops in a neighbouring town but on the way back from our errand we saw some signs advertising a jumble sale in aid of a local school, we had planned to go charity shopping in Ripon but I love jumble sales! Especially proper ones where everything really is jumbled together on trestle tables.

I’ll leave you with a sneaky finds peek for now, because I have a lot of sorting to do and photos to take. Honestly, pretty much everything was 20p but we got there pretty late and had to just grab whatever looked decent – we definitely got a few gems though!

I’ll post tomorrow with the best of the finds!

Beccy